In the midst of OU's Residence Challenge , I deemed it appropriate to discuss a few ideas that will help with conserving energy in our homes and dorm rooms. I'll start with some energy conservation advice for folks living on campus. If you are familiar with living in the OU residence halls, you know that it can get pretty stinking hot, even for our bitter winters, with the central heat on. With that said, the heating situation can get uncomfortable so naturally you may turn on the air conditioning to cool off. The thing about turning on your air is that it's using a lot of electricity to cool off the electricity produced heat, which also uses a lot of electricity. The bottom line is that there's too much unnecessary power use, to put it simply. So what can you do to avoid wasting energy without compromising your comfort level? It's as easy as leaving your window open a crack, or using the fan mode on the air conditioning unit. It may seem kind of wasteful to let the heat escape, but it's the lesser of two evils, and air conditioners can be pretty evil if you're trying to conserve energy.
Another main power sucker in a dorm room is the lights. The best thing to save energy here is by using a CFL bulb in the light socket (you know those funky curly-cue looking bulbs?). CFL bulbs only use a quarter of the energy that your typical incandescent bulb does, so it's easy to why you'd want to use a CFL. Now, if you aren't using a CFL bulb in your room yet, don't fret because there's a light bulb exchange program the OU Office of Sustainability has set up for students in residents halls. With this bulb swap, residents are able to exchange one incandescent bulb for one CFL bulb so everyone can have an opportunity to conserve energy. If you are interested in the CLF exchange for your residents hall just e-mail sustainability@ohio.edu.
Lastly, when living in the residence halls it can be fairly easy to forget to turn things off when you are not using them, especially because you aren't responsible for paying the electricity bill. Just because you aren't necessarily paying for it doesn't mean you can't be an energy conscious resident! There are little check lists you can stick on your wall so as you leave your room you have a little reminder to turn off your electronics, seems easy enough, right?
Moving on to those who live off campus in the Athens community, there are a few more winter energy conservation tips. Seeing that most of us who live off-campus have larger living areas/houses and are responsible for large amounts of laundry, dishes, and other tasks that may require the aid of an electric appliance, it can get pretty expensive and a lot less sustainable. So I looked at the things in a house that require the most energy and how to conserve in those areas and here's what I came up with:
1) Laundry Machine/Dryer: These can be energy mongers, unless you have an Energy Star machine, which not many off-campus houses do, so use the cold wash cycle instead of wasting energy on heating up the water. You can also utilize a drying rack to hang-dry clothing in order to conserve the energy a dryer would eat up.
2) Dishwasher: There is definitely a decent amount of energy involved in running this appliance, and not everyone wants to hand wash their dishes (which can actually be less efficient and more wasteful depending on your method), so don't run a half-empty dishwasher, that's the easiest way to go about saving energy with this machine. I'm not saying you have to pack the thing until the door won't close, just don't be afraid to hold off on running it until it's actually full. You can also change the settings so that it won't heat dry your dishes, and instead you can dry them by hand.
3) Central heat: Most houses have control over the thermostat so the residents can set the temperature, unlike the dorms, so don't set it too high! This is probably the easiest way to save on heating energy. Another idea is to seal your windows by stapling plastic wrap/sheets tightly to the inside walls around the window. This keeps heat in and cold drafts out. An easier way of utilizing this insulation tactic, if you don't want to/have the supplies for insulating windows with plastic, is by simply closing shades and curtains of all windows. Another tip is to be sure your doors are sealed properly. You can roll up a towel and place it at the base of doors leading outside to cut down on drafts.
Stay Sustainable,
Becca in Athens
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